I Tie No Weights
by DiMick
Summary: Sheriff Emma Swan is pulled from her boring morning by an emergency phone call. When she reaches the scene of the accident, and the woman by the side of the road has no idea who she is, it's clear this won't be over quickly. Post curse, Swan Queen. Cover credit to AvalancheRun
1. Chapter 1

Yet another banner day in Storybrooke, I tell myself as my watch beeps another hour. From inside my desk I hear my doughnut calling to me. I know it's bad for my weight, and my cholesterol, and terribly cliché – as Madame Mayor so kindly informs me – but I like them and I'm determined not to care. I bought it from Granny's, intended it for my lunch, but I'm hungry and I guess 11 o'clock is close enough. Besides, if I leave it, the cream will seep through, leaving a soggy mess in my drawer. If there's one thing I'd make a crime, it'd be letting a doughnut go soggy. That, perhaps, and being as pig-headed as Regina Mills.

The doughnut is most of the way to my mouth, just a few inches from destiny, when the phone rings. It's the emergency line, and I pick it up before it rings three times.

"Sherriff's department," I say, and fully expect the call to demand my help in rescuing a cat, breaking up one of Leroy's bar fights again. Crime hasn't exactly skyrocketed since the end of the curse and the battle for Storybrooke. With only half the population of before, life seems, if possible, even slower.

The voice I hear on the other end is frightened, small, and not at all what I expected to hear.

"Please, I think I've had an accident, and I have no idea where I am." I sit forward, drop my uneaten sweet to the desk.

"What can you see?" I ask, trying to keep my voice and breathing level. Accidents on forest roads, at this time of year, are sudden and quick, over before they begin. The roads twist and turn, and the overhanging trees cast shadows and hide the black ice that builds up on corners.

"A town sign?" comes the tentative reply. "I don't recognize the name. Storybrooke?" My hand is reaching for my keys before she has even stopped speaking.

"Hang in there," I say, shrugging into my winter jacket. "I'm coming." The streets are empty as the patrol car moves across town. I want to rush, to hurry along, but I cannot afford an accident myself. From the car's radio I contact the ambulance department, tell them to meet me. The road around that sign is dangerous, even after the boundary broke, and I know that the town will have to look into its roads' safety records, after this accident.

Eventually, I round a bend in the road and can see the tyres' tracks, skidding and slewing across the road. The car is not visible, so I leave the cruiser and follow the marks, off the road and into the woods. There, heart clenching, I see a familiar black sedan, its bonnet crushed against a tree, windscreens shattered and smashed. There's no fire, no immediate danger, but there's no occupant either. The driver's door stands open, and footprints lead away from the wreck.

"Hello," I call out, hands cupping my mouth for greater effect. "Regina!" There is no answer, and I head in the direction of the footprints, climbing back up the bank towards the road, beyond that dangerous sign. I clamber, slipping, up the incline, holding on to small saplings for support, When I reach the top, I find myself directly behind a hunched figure, crouching down beside the tarmac, her expensive coat muddied, hair in disarray.

"Regina," I repeat. "Are you OK?" She turns around, and I see a long, shallow cut across her frightened face. At the sight of me, she closes her eyes and sighs with relief.

"Are you the Sherriff?" she asks, hope flooding her voice. She reaches out a hand and lays it on my arm, fingers gripping the leather of my jacket. "I'm sorry to call you out. I don't know what happened. I just found myself here. Well down there, and I rang the only number I could think of." The tone of voice is so unlike herself, unguarded, softer, but before I can answer, can ask what's going on, the flash and noise of the ambulance roar up the road, stopping carefully next to us.

The paramedics jump out, and run towards her.

"Madam Mayor," the first one says, shakily, his eyes darting to me for reassurance. The title is old, now, but folk are still wary of using her name, and 'Evil Queen' is hardly the way to address a patient. "Are you alright?" She nods, a strange kind of sideways shake, too indecisive and vague a motion for Regina Mills to make. As they rush forward, she pulls away from me, smiles, and gestures at her face.

"Just this," she says, but there's clearly more. They move her into the ambulance, sitting her on the bed, breaking open sterile bandages and cleaning buds. I hesitate as the medics tend to her, knowing that if I am wrong, I will be the one needing an ambulance, then decide I have to risk it. I take out my notebook and pen, clear my throat, and fall into my official role.

"Can you tell me who you are?" I ask, as if routinely. A moment passes in silence and then she seems to collect herself, drawing her shoulders higher. Then comes that megawatt smile, the insincere, Mayoral smile that I have seen directed at me so many times before.

"Sherriff," she says, and her tone is light, condescending, "I'm Regina, the Mayor. Surely you know that?" To others, perhaps, outsiders, it would be convincing, but she's trying too hard to be affable, repeating facts that we ourselves have told her. I laugh, a little huff of breath.

"Yes, of course. Just routine. Can you tell me what happened?" Again, there's a momentary pause, an instant of blankness. Her eyes flicker between me and the man carefully swabbing her face, judging, analysing.

"I must have hit a patch of ice. It was over so quickly, I can't really tell you." Now that rings true, but there's no need to lie. I smile, and check with the ambulance crew that she's good to go.

"Thanks, boys," I say, "I'll run the Mayor home. There's some accident forms to fill in." They smile at me, pat my arm, and nod, deferentially, at Regina, tell her to see a doctor in the next few days. Watching from the corner of my eye, I can see her confusion at their treatment. I jump out of the ambulance, hold my hand up to Regina, who takes it, daintily, and steps down after me. Once we're on the ground, the ambulance sets off, heading back into town, and we set off too, walking towards the parked patrol car.

"I'll have the garage come and collect your car," I say, "let's get you home." It's only as we reach the car that I realise, we're still holding hands. I let go, her hand resistant and unwilling, and as I look down I see the faint outline of goosebumps rising up her arm. It's then I realise how cold she must be, having waited by the road for me to get there. Her coat, although expensive and flattering, is hardly thick enough.

"Here," I say, pulling my jacket off. "Wear this, for now, you should stay warm." She doesn't complain, but happily shrugs the jacket over her shoulders, burrowing down into its warmth, pressing her face against its lining. There's none of the disgust or revulsion I expected to greet my offer, no fastidious sniffing or checking for dirt. I watch her as she climbs into the passenger seat and twists to fit the seatbelt. She pulls the sleeves of my jacket down over her hands, bunching the fabric over, closing the sleeves against the cold air. I turn the heater on full blast, and sit for a moment, until she catches my gaze. She shifts uncomfortably, and gestures forwards with her head.

"When you're ready then, Sherriff."

I nod, and the car moves forward, pulling out onto the road and towards town. We drive in silence, and I wait for her to correct my direction, comment and complain as we pass turning after turning that would lead us to the mansion. As we stop outside Snow's apartment, her eyes scrunch slightly, as if she's trying to remember something long lost. I run round and open the door for her, again offering my hand as she swings her legs out, heels wobbling awkwardly on the tarmac. This time, she lets go of my hand quickly, staring at it as if burnt. We climb the stairs to the apartment, and my keys are in the door before I realise my mistake.

"You have keys?" she asks, frowning. I nod, smile.

"Sure I have keys," I say, and usher her inside. She looks around, taking in the wooden cupboards, the artificially rustic decor, and frowns.

"I don't live here," she says, suddenly certain, "This is not my home."

I shrug, caught finally in my deception.

"No," I say, "I do." She sits, heavily, on the couch, and refuses to meet my eyes. I sit next to her and cover her hands with mine. "Tell me, Regina, how much do you actually remember?" I make sure to keep my voice soft, reassuring. She sniffs.

"I remember that I would not live in a place like this. It's too," she grimaces, and waves her hands in front of her, "fussy. And I remember that I like you." I cannot help but laugh at her, but am cut short by her later words.

"You remember that you like me?" I ask.

"Yes, I knew as soon as I saw you. We're friends." She stops, and her face slowly falls. I dunno, perhaps I look as surprised as I feel. "We are friends, right?"

We're not, not even close, but she seems so sincere, so genuine. It's been so long since anyone looked at me like that, like they trust me totally, perhaps no-one's ever looked at me that way, and I cannot let her down.

"We are," I say, and am rewarded with a smile that melts my insides. Her hands turn towards mine, and she laces her fingers through mine. The touch of her palm sends shivers along my spine, and I feel myself blushing. "I think, you know, that we ought to get you checked out. See why you can't remember."

The drive to the hospital is again silent, Regina wrapped again in my jacket, hair smoothed and tamed by copious amounts of products I bought and never used. This time the silence isn't tense or awkward, broken only by soft breathing. As I drive, Regina's hand lightly trails across the dashboard, fiddling with the radio and air conditioning system. Occasionally, her arm brushes mine where it rests on the gearstick, and finally I feel a warm hand descend and cover mine, turn my head to see Regina staring fixedly out of the side window, and feel a small smile slide across my lips.

We enter the hospital, and the staff are hardly falling over themselves to see to the Mayor. She treats them all with equal, if detached, gratefulness, and frowns at the surprise in their expressions. Dr Whale insists on a CAT scan, to check for serious damage, and as she enters the machine room Regina looks at me.

"Don't leave me," she pleads, and I know that I won't. She lies down, pulling the hospital gown self-consciously around her.

"It's alright, Regina," says Whale, and his hand drops to rest high on her thigh. It's meant to be a comforting gesture, one he can reach from the scanner's control panel, but as he touches her I see her flinch, eyes fixed on the wandering limb, wide with horror. I clear my throat, loudly, and as he turns round, I stare pointedly, and he pulls his hand away, embarrassed.

"You have to leave the room, Sherriff," he says. "X-rays." Despite my promise, I know I will have to follow the doctor's orders, and make my way to Regina, laying small and fragile on the moving bed.

"I'll be right outside," I say, "with the doctors. And I'll be back soon." She nods, her mouth set into a grim, determined line.

In the next room, I lean against the wall and watch the coloured images move and change across the screen. I don't know what they mean, and the only thing that seems odd is why scientists would choose to display the brain in vibrant Technicolor. Surely there's a less… artistic method they could have used. After what seems like hours, but is probably only minutes, the bed starts again to move, pulling Regina out of the machine, exposing her to the light inch by inch.

"Talk to me," I say. "What needs to be done?"

"Well, we won't have the full results of this scan for a few days, but this kind of amnesia is generally transient – non permanent – so she should recover her memories from before the accident in time. Without any way to estimate how long she remained unconscious, I can't give you an exact timeline." The doctor shifts, uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. "In the meantime, we could keep her in for observation, but…" He leaves the sentence unfinished, as his eyes flit nervously to Regina, who is currently sitting demurely for the nurse to take her blood pressure, arm held out obligingly. The scene is so far from usual I can't help but expect her suddenly to snap, to stand up and yell at the other woman, storming out of the room with dramatic flair. With a sigh, I get it. She might not be the Evil Queen anymore, but she's still a difficult woman to please, and Dr Whale is protecting his staff from her wrath.

"So what's the alternative?" I ask, transferring my weight to one leg and shoving my hands in my pockets. I haven't forgotten the scene outside the mansion as the purple smoke cleared, I haven't forgotten the way Whale led the call for her blood, and my voice is hard and cold.

"If she returns to her own home, among familiar surroundings, it may trigger her memory." He stops, again, and rubs his neck. Whatever he's working up to, he thinks I won't like it. As it turns out, he's damn right. "She shouldn't be left, however. She needs someone to stay with her, overnight. For observation."

He wants me to be the one to stay, and her hopeful little smile from inside the treatment room just confirms I'm gonna have to say yes.


	2. Chapter 2

I call Snow, who is predictably concerned – not for Regina, enough of the old hurts linger for that, but for me, and for Henry. The thought has crossed her mind, I know, that this is a trick to play on our sympathies, to bring us one step further to forgiveness and reconciliation.

"You don't have to stay with her, Emma," she says, voice crackling down the phone line. "That's what the hospital's for. I'm sure she's magicked herself decent health insurance."

"I don't have to, Snow. But I'm going to." I pause, and hear her sigh at the other end. "Like I'd tell Henry, it's what a good person would do." There's little arguing with that, especially for people whose whole identity seems anchored on the fact that they are 'good'.

By the time the doctors discharge her, with pain medication and an appointment for two days time, it's 4 o'clock, and the end of the working day. As we pull up outside the school, Henry is the last kid standing in the playground. He's tall, gangly, these days, as you'd expect now teenage hormones are catching up to him.

"Who's that?" The look on Regina's face is that of someone reaching for a word on the tip of her tongue, that Jeopardy answer you just can't remember, a fact you should know but don't.

"Henry," I say, "your son." I still choke a little over the pronoun, and imagine Snow's face as I say it. But then again, as Regina is so fond of repeating, who takes parenting lessons from someone who put their child in a box and shipped her to Maine?

There's a pause, a kind of choking silence as Regina struggles to breathe beside me.

"My son?" Regina repeats, and I see her eyes slip from my face to Henry's, taking in the similarities, comparing her own in the rearview mirror.

"Hi Mom, hi Emma." The kid climbs in, slinging his backpack carelessly across the seats. "Mom, are you alright?" There's real concern in his voice – not that that's a surprise anymore – and he leans forward in the seat to get a better look.

"Yes, thank-you...Henry. I'll be fine."

I can feel the disappoint from Henry in the back. He might be thirteen, but he's always believed in fairytales, and now more than ever he's convinced of love's power. It can break any curse – I can almost hear him say it. I guess he thought she'd see him, and remember her love for him, and everything else along with it. The trouble is, of course, in Maine medical conditions aren't caused, or fixed, by magic.

She smiles then, the special smile that's always been reserved for Henry alone. "Of course you're my son. My Henry. Of course you are."

"And –" Henry begins, but I silence him with a look. There's really no need to complicate things any further at this stage. Whale said she'd recover her memories, in time, and that's time enough for me.

The rest of the journey, short as it is, carries on in silence.

The outside of the mansion seems dirty, faded, since the first time I saw it. One of the front windows has been broken, and covered hastily over with a wooden cover. The shattered glass on the flower beds, barren and bare these days, tells me it's recent vandalism. I should have heard about it before now – Regina should have reported it, like anyone else – but the Mayor still wants to do things by herself. Bit of a control freak, really, although it isn't hard to see why.

I let us inside with the keys Regina fishes uncertainly from her coat pocket. We step through into the still immaculate hallway, and stop, right there in the entrance. I reckon that this is what she must spend most of her days doing, keeping this place so tidy and dust-free.

"Oh yes," Regina says, eyes wide at the sight of her own house, "this is where I live." A small smile breaks out across her face, and her hand slips down to catch Henry's. I see her squeeze a little, before her gaze falls to her feet.

"As my son," she says, and some of her old tone is returning to her voice, "you'll know to take your shoes off in the entrance hall." He blushes, and ducks his head.

Henry installs Regina in the living room, where she sits pressed against the arm of the sofa, arm around our son, watching cartoons with a bemused smile. With waved assurances and fake confidence, I insist that not only can I cook, but that I will make dinner for the three of us. Two very similar and unconvinced faces stare up at me, and it's creepy. Like being watched by the weirdest twins in the world.

Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is pristine. There's nothing on show, and even the cupboards are neat and orderly. The fridge is full, packed with healthy choices and fresh vegetables, some of which I don't even recognise. For a start, there's a bowl of bumpy looking artichokes on the side. I pick one up, experimentally. It's lighter than I'd expect, and smells almost like pineapple, or banana.

"It's a custard apple," a voice from behind me says. I jump, and the artichoke thing slips from my hand onto the work surface then rolls, end over end, crashing to the floor. Regina bends down, dusts the bruised fruit on her skirt, and places it back in the bowl.

"I'm really good at ordering pizza," I say. She nods, and smiles a little, hand still lingering in the fruit bowl.

"I think that might be safest," she says, "for all of us." And there, full force, is the Regina I've always known. The one with the quick and cutting comebacks, with the sass and the spark. It's her that people are afraid of, not just the threat of her magic, long since dissipated. She can stop grown adults dead with just a few words, shift the tide of an argument, set people moving in the patterns she wants. It's a skill I wish I had, a verbal defence mechanism, and I wonder where she learnt it.

The rest of the evening passes quietly enough. She sends Henry to bed at dead on half-seven, and he goes without a murmur. When she returns from his bedtime story – a new tradition, according to Henry – it leaves us alone in the room, sat in the blue gloaming, not speaking, not touching. The silence isn't awkward, or uncomfortable, but rather companionable. I watch her face as she in turn watches the television, watch as she smiles, laughs, gives little petulant half-frowns.

She's beautiful, despite the long white bandage across her cheek. She looks more open, less guarded than I've ever seen her. I guess that's what losing all your shitty memories does to you. I can think of quite a few episodes of my own life I'd happily erase, and I'm sure the Evil Queen did too.

By nine, her eyes are drooping and she's sunk lower and lower into the couch.

"Come on," I say, "go to sleep. You've had a long day."

She shuts the door of her room behind her with a soft click, and I turn to the closest empty and impersonal guest room. I wonder who Regina intended all these rooms for, when she built Storybrooke. As far as I know she's never had any guests that didn't share her bed before, and the thought brings bile to my throat as I remember Graham.

The bed though is soft and comfortable, the covers warm, and those angry hurtful thoughts are old now, and toothless.

The silence of the night is suddenly broken. The noise seems inhuman, wild and uncontrolled. I start from the bed and out of the door into the corridor. Henry is standing there too, wrapped tight in that old-man dressing gown Regina insists he wears, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"Is that my Mom?" he asks, voice still thick with sleep. The cry has died to whimpers now, but they're coming fast and insistent from behind Regina's door. I nod, and hold my finger to my lips.

"Go back to bed, Henry. She'll be OK." Snow would have tucked him back in, whispered lullabies to him. Regina would have too, but Henry and I, we've never had that kind of relationship. I don't even know that I'd be any good at the whole lullaby thing anyway, so I shoo him back into his room with a smile.

"It's OK kid, I'll look after her."

The room is careful creams and high fashion – not one thing an inch out of place. Shoes are paired neatly under the chair, clothes on hangers, items on the dressing tables lined up neatly in a row. I have to smile. Even with amnesia, when she has no idea who she is, Regina's still as uptight as ever.

Well. The rest of the room gives that impression.

The bed, however, is a mess of rumpled sheets and duvet. The fact there's a person under there is almost hard to believe, but the whimpers and moans give it away. I cross the carpet in the half-dark, navigating the empty space by the window's light, and sit on the edge of the mattress.

"Sshhh," I say, trying to be soothing. Like I said about the lullabies, I don't reckon I'm any good at it. In fact, Regina twists and twitches under the covers, turning her head this way and that. She's dreaming, and vigourously, and that can't be restful. I reach my hand out, lay it on her shoulder, pushing her back against the mattress. "Lay still, Regina," I whisper, "and just rest."

She goes slack beneath my hand, body limp against the bed.

"I'm sorry, Mother. I'll be good." The words are whispered, moaned even, but they carry a mechanical tone that's all too familiar. It's something you say so many times, over and over and over. I hear my own voice, promising teachers, foster parents and prison wardens the exact same thing. I'll be good. I promise I'll be good. Next time, I'll be good, I swear.

There's a lump in my throat, and I'm not sure who it's for. Perhaps I'm just tired, woken unexpectedly, and self-pitying. Perhaps, and the realization has been dawning on me for longer than 'd have liked it to, I just understand the woman lying in front of me.

The house isn't cold, but the chill of the night air is beginning to prick at my uncovered legs, sending goosebumps down across my shins. As I lift the covers a waft of air comes gushing out, hot and fevered, carrying with it a blast of perfume. The duvet and the sheets beneath it are warm and comfortable, and I can't help but slide down till I'm almost lying next to her. It's a good thing, I reckon, that I've come to terms with the whole fairytale thing. Three years ago I'd have told you that you were on drugs if you'd ever suggested I would share a bed with the Evil Queen herself. But here we are, in reality, and it's not so bad.

Lying on my side, I trace my fingers through her hair, still trying to soothe, trying to calm, whispering all the things I wish someone had said to me.

"You are good, you don't have to change. You are worth it. And not just for shampoo." I smile at my own joke, huff a quiet laugh, and somehow, quietly, gently, without a ripple of consciousness, it's the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

The sunlight streams under the curtains, showing the room in a soft yellow light. Regina's arm is draped across me, her hand pressed flat against my breast. Her leg, too, lays across my own, pinning me against the mattress. Her head is buried in the crook of my neck, and her breath comes in warm pants over my skin.

I want to shift, to get out of there. Cuddling's not my deal, especially not with Henry in the next room. Especially not with Regina.

But her face is peaceful, line free, and I can't.

The door opens, and Henry comes into the room, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Mom?" He's wearing his old man dressing gown again, and slippers I'd expect to see in a nursing home, not a nursery. "Emma?" As he stands by the bed, he stares down at us, and I feel I should start explaining, but don't even know where to start.

At the sound of his voice, Regina stirs beside me, pressing the length of her thigh against mine. She reaches out a hand, and pulls him to the bed. His weight presses heavy for a moment on my stomach, knees and elbows sharp, then he's nestled between us. Regina's arm is over him now, but her hand still rests on my skin, and shows no sign of moving.

Henry's dressing gown is cold in contrast to the warmth of the bed covers, and he seems to be made entirely of heels and elbows, and other pointy parts, and the urge to move and get up grows stronger. I feel like I should be fidgeting, wriggling out from under the weight of their sleepy silences, but my arms and legs no longer obey my commands. My eyes feel dry, itchy, and I blink to wet them. The blinks get longer and slower, the pull of the darkness tempting, and in the end I just let myself sleep, the three of us curled together in Regina's bed, like an actual family unit.

When my phone alarm goes off in the other room, some hours later, we're still in the same position. This time my eyes blink open not shut, and I find myself staring straight into the very awake face of Regina Mills. Being cuddled up and thinking all those soppy thoughts about understanding and families was fine – well, dealable with – while she was asleep. When she's awake, it's a totally different thing.

I basically fall out of the bed, and stumble across the room ungracefully. I mutter something about the alarm, and breakfast, but I'm pretty certain it makes no sense whatsoever. Back in the guest room, my reflection pants back at me, a look of startled panic still plastered across her features. Jesus. That's not the face you want to wake up to the day after a car crash. Or any day, I guess, if you're sane.

The phone is still chirping away, belting out that irritating set of notes. My shift starts in, like, an hour and a half, and there's so much to do before then. I think, briefly, about not going in, but I'd still have to sort a replacement for my duty shift. Charming's a great guy, and I'm sure a fantastic prince, but he doesn't make much of an American sheriff. His methods are just too...fairytale.

I pull my clothes on hurriedly, clipping my badge back to my belt, and just hope my deputy has better sense than to say anything about my dirty hair or the fact I'm still in yesterday's clothes. The house is still quiet, and I'm glad that Regina hasn't come rushing after me. I mean, not that she ever would – it'd be too much like saying she cared what anyone thought.

The school's understanding when I ring to explain Henry's absence. Even though Snow no longer works there, I have some pull with the staff still. I guess it's being the Sheriff, you know – official power. Or perhaps it's the whole Saviour thing, but most days I tend to try and forget that particular title.

I bang uselessly about in the kitchen, trying to find the pans and ingredients for a basic porridge. I failed miserably at making dinner, but a simple breakfast I can cook.

I dunno what rouses her – the clatter of pans and stuff as I mess up her cupboards, or the smell of cooking oats and milk – but when I turn round Regina is standing in the doorway, watching me.

"Good morning, Sheriff," she says. Her voice is low and still thick with sleep, rumpled at the edges like the silk nightdress that barely reaches her thigh. It's a surprisingly risqué choice to appear in, but then given the Evil Queen's outfits I suppose Regina never has shied away from revealing clothes.

"I think you can call me Emma," I say, and she shrugs. I can see she's working herself up to say something, and I don't want to hear it. I just know, without a reason why, that I'm going to like this even less than when Whale did the same yesterday.

"About this morning," I say, pre-empting any questions she's formed in her head, "I'm sorry. It's just a shock, you know – to wake up to someone." My hand's in front of my face, and I'm back to pulling that stupid startled expression again. It's not smooth. It's not calm and dignified like I'd hoped, I'm just making everything worse with each word.

She holds her hands out in front of her.

"It's alright, Emma – I understand." She smiles, and turns her head. "It answers one question, at least." Her voice is determinedly light and casual, masking some unknown depth of feeling. Whether it's relief, or what, I don't know. I sincerely hope it's relief. My face must be betray my thoughts, for she sighs, and looks down at the ground.

"You were clearly so fond of Henry, and he of you, and you knew your way around the house, and I wondered..." She trails off, and does not meet my eyes.

"No," I say, "it's not, I mean, we're not..." My ever so eloquent speech is thankfully interrupted by Henry's arrival. Together they set the table for three, and I cook the porridge. It ends up not too burnt at the bottom, but it is kind of solid and falls out of the pan into the bowls in lumps.

Henry and Regina look sideways at each other in judgement, and Henry starts to laugh. Even I have to smile, and then Regina joins in too, and we're laughing and clutching our sides and spoons over the breakfast table.

And then I have to go to work.

"How many cats stuck up trees d'you reckon there'll be today, Henry?" I ask as I pull my boots on. He grins, mouth glued shut with porridge.

"Better question – how many doughnuts will the Sheriff eat today?" Regina says, eyebrow archly raised, finger poking into my side. Henry splutters with laughter, spraying oats across the table. I feel that old prick of jealousy at the fact that her joke was better than mine, and have to fight it down. Regina glares at him, and Henry sheepishly wipes the mess up with a cloth.

We stand by the front door, one hand on the doorknob, the other clutching my sandwiches, packed in Henry's old lunchbox, ready to go.

"Look, if you need me – at all, for anything – you call the station, and I'll come." I'm not sure why I'm being so fervent in my promises, quite so conscientious in my duty. "I'll be back after work, about six."

"Have a good day," she says, and it feels horrifyingly domestic. Like some twisted fifties sitcom, where the husband is packed off to work, lunch in hand, as the wife and son run riot at home.

That itchy, wriggling urge flares back up in the pit of my stomach, and I twist on the spot. With a muttered "See ya," I'm off down the path and into the cruiser, foot on the accelerator before the door is even firmly closed.

I stop at the diner, like every morning, and grab my coffee and cakes. The people there are abuzz with the news of Regina's accident, and their questions feel like the pecks of vultures, lining up for the first bite of a dying horse. Time might have moved on, but the people here who chose to stay haven't forgotten, haven't forgiven, and they're just waiting for disaster to strike, so they can strut and crow with delight.

I can hear their whispered remarks about my clothing, about the fact the cruiser stayed outside the mansion all night. Even Ruby's cheery hello and good morning feels forced, like she's plumbing me for information. Let them talk, I think as I climb back into the car, careful with the hot coffee in my hand. Let them whisper and gossip. People's opinions only hurt if you let them.

The morning passes, as mornings always do. By eleven, as always, the cake is calling to me. Not a doughnut today – for some reason I just didn't fancy it – but an iced bun. It's dry, and I don't have the excuse of the cream filling, but I'm an adult, and I don't need an excuse to eat a cake. I just can, regardless of mayors and their poking fingers.

I've had, like, maybe two bites when the phone rings.

"You're eating a cake, aren't you," says the voice on the other end, and I swallow hurriedly.

"And if I am?" There's laughter on the other end, and Regina calls something about a bet to Henry in the background.

"You'll spoil your dinner, which Henry and I are going to make." The call doesn't last long, but when I put the phone down I'm left, staring into space, wondering where this Regina has been. The funny, witty, friendly woman I just spoke to bears almost no resemblance to the mayor I first met. God, if I'd known all it took was a bang on the head, I'd have probably bashed her one ages ago.

There's footsteps, but I just assume they're my staff's until Snow actually speaks to me from the corner of my desk.

"And what's that goofy grin for, Ems?" I can feel my face falling as I look round at her, pulled from my daydreams back to real life.

"Nothing really," I say, shaking my head. "Just – if we'd known all Regina needed was a knock on the head to make her nice, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble." It's said jokingly, of course, but her face tightens, lips pressing into a thin line. She moves closer, and squats down next to me, looking up, her hand coming to rest on my arm.

"Emma," she says, and I can feel another lecture coming, "you can't trust this change of heart. You can't trust her." Oh yep. One of Snow's lectures on the untrustworthiness and deceptiveness of Regina. "When she married my father, you'd never have known that she was plotting her revenge on all of us. I had no idea; I thought she loved me." Snow shakes her head, and stands up, away from me. "The woman's a fantastic actor, Emma, but that's what it is. An act, a facade. She'll use you to get what she wants, and then...well, look what happened to Sidney."

"I don't think it's an act. My superpower, remember?" I rub my hand across my eyes, tiredly. "Besides, she didn't know her own name. Or recognise Henry." Snow still looks sceptical, unconvinced. "She thought we were, you know, a couple."

"You and me?" Snow asks, looking utterly disgusted. When I shake my head, her mouth opens into a surprised 'o'. She sits heavily on the desk, bracing herself with her hands. "What on earth made her think that?"

I shift, pushing my shoulders back, and sending little cracks all down my spine.

"Well," I say, and brace myself for the fallout, "I kinda slept in her bed."

"You did what?" It's loud enough to draw enquiring looks from my deputy, but I wave him away. Snow's pacing up and down, muttering to herself, hands gesticulating wildly. I can't catch every word, but the ones I do tell me she's really not happy.

"Wait till your father hears about this," she says, finally.

"No," I say. "Look, she was having a nightmare. About Cora." Snow stops pacing, and looks at me. I mimic Regina's voice, closing my eyes, and turning my head. "Please, Mother, I'll be good." Snow takes a deep breath, and lets it out quietly.

"Just, be careful."

I nod, but her words are fairly pointless. Where Regina's concerned, I'm unlikely to be anything else.


	4. Chapter 4

Dinner is, of course, totally delicious. A full roast joint of gammon, with all the usual trimmings. There's even wine, and Henry chats excitedly throughout the whole thing. Regina, though, seems especially quiet. I mean, she answers questions when she's asked, and fills Henry's expectant gaps with ease. But unlike last night, or even this morning, she doesn't volunteer anything new, just eats, her eyes scanning my face when she thinks I'm distracted.

After dinner, we settle again in the living room until 7.30, when Henry dutifully goes to bed. When Regina comes back down, rather than sitting back on the couch, she stands by my chair, arms crossed. I look up at her, looking more and more like the Mayor, and she reaches for the remote, turning the TV off.

"Sheriff," she says, and I notice we're back to titles already, "there's something I'd like to show you." I stand up, following her across the hall into her study. The computer screen is lit up, and she sits behind the desk.

I can see over her shoulder that she's been looking through her folders – rows upon rows of carefully labelled documents, each containing departmental reports or budgets, the lifeblood of any working town official. It's not too dissimilar to my own computer at work and I shrug.

"Yeah, you're the Mayor. For now, at least."

"Not these – these are just...work. I wanted to show you these." There's a few clicks of her mouse, and a security box pops up. She enters the password no problem, and I wonder how she managed it. She must think the same, for she motions to a photo of Henry as a baby that stands on the desk in front of her.

"His birth date was on the back. I tried that."

The screen now shows yet more rows of folders, but this time each one bears the name of a Storybrooke resident.

"God," I breathe, "that's everyone in the town."

"Each folder holds information on these people. Where they live, what they do, who they're sleeping with. Even childhood memories and bank details." She looks aghast, and I imagine I do too. "And some of what's written here you wouldn't believe. It's just insane." Ah yes. I can imagine what those files say.

"Fairytale identities?" I ask. She nods.

"Am I insane?" I shake my head, and sit heavily in a nearby chair.

"Nope. It's all true. All of it." I run my hands through my hair, blocking Regina from my line of sight. I never thought I'd have to explain all this to the woman that caused it.

"I looked up the names from these stories," she says, "and I think I've worked out who I must be." I hope, in a way, that she has. It'd mean less careful word-stepping, watching my phrases and how much I give away. "I'm Snow White's Evil Queen, aren't I?"

I sigh, slowly.

"Yeah." There's not much else to say. I can't deny it, not when it's true.

"Did I really send a man to cut out her heart?"

"Yeah." And you tried to destroy an entire world when the whole cutting her heart out thing didn't work. And also you killed your husband, and your father, and your lover too. It's your fault, kinda, that I grew up in care and got a criminal record, and had a baby at eighteen and in prison. I don't say those last bits, of course. There's a limit on what I'm going to divulge. If it's not in the files, and I highly doubt that it all is, she'll just have to wait to remember. "But not cos she was prettier than you."

When I look up at her, she's still staring at the screen, clicking aimlessly on files, bringing up documents one by one.

"This hasn't triggered any memories for you, has it?" I ask. Then she looks at me, and shakes her head, shrugging slightly.

"Nothing." She leans back in the chair, rubbing at her side. We sit in silence for a while, each working out our next step. I'd hoped, all along, that she'd remember who she was before I had to explain. I'm not even sure I can explain, properly. And if it was me, would I wanna know?

When she speaks, her voice is low, uncertain, almost shy.

"We're not friends, are we?" I look at her, mouth open, poised to lie. But her eyes are pleading again, begging silently for the truth.

"Not even close." I scrape my teeth over my lip, pausing, gathering the strength to continue. "I guess you read about Henry." She nods, tightly. "Even without all that other stuff, he's the dividing wedge between us. You know, who he loves most, or at all, or how much I see him, or what candy he's allowed to eat. Jesus, Regina, this is pretty much the longest we've ever gone in each other's company without issuing death threats at each other." It's an exaggeration, I know, but it serves my point.

"Or feeding the other poisoned pastries," she says. Clearly, those files really are extensive. She nods her head towards the screen, wanting me to look.

It's an official document, and for a moment I can't tell what it is. Then I see. It's a petition for a restraining order against me, Snow and Charming. It cites breaches of the closed adoption, reckless behaviour and – jeez – even multiple counts of kidnapping. I can't help but start back from the computer, and from Regina. This isn't just the beginnings of a civil suit – that's the basis for criminal convictions. And with a record, an ex-con like me is gonna be treated pretty harshly, current Sheriff job or not.

"Has this been sent already?" I haven't been back to the apartment, the papers could be lying on Snow's kitchen counter right now.

Regina shakes her head frantically, standing up from the chair. She crosses to me, takes me by the arms, and holds me tight.

"No – it' just a draft. I checked." I search her face, hoping against hope she's not lying and my superpower chooses this one time to fail. "I swear," she says, fervently, "it's just a draft." Her fingers tighten on my arm, and I can feel her willing me to believe. I nod, and she lets me go, reeling back into the chair. From her reaction, you'd think it was her life and freedom under threat, not mine.

"Look," she says. "I wanted you to see it, to know. But now –" She quits the program, sending her back to the list of files. The restraining order is highlighted, and she slams her finger against the delete key. "Gone," she says, before clearing the recycling bin as well.

That just leaves the rest of the files she's got stored on every Storybrooke resident, past and present. But those can be dealt with another time, I decide. It's late, and I feel a headache coming on. We shuffle up to bed in awkward silence, Regina to her room, and me to mine.

It's been one of those days when you just want your head to hit the pillow and to be asleep, like a light going out. Unfortunately, I'm never that lucky. The whole thing swims around in my head, churning my stomach into some horrid semblance of hunger. I twist and turn, trying to find a position that blocks these invasive thoughts, which I seem to hear in Snow's voice, but sleep doesn't come.

And then, like last night, shouts and cries come from Regina's bedroom. I'm up and out of bed before Henry can even stir this time. She's twisted up in the covers as before, and I sit on the edge of the bed. Tonight, I tell myself, tonight there'll be no climbing in there with her. There'll be no cuddling, no hair stroking, and no panicked morning wake up.

She's crying now, not in fear but with sorrow. Tears actually run from behind her closed eyelids, dampening her pillow and face. She's murmuring something in her sleep, calling for her father, pleading for forgiveness. It's not rote, not 'I'll be good', this is genuine regret and it tugs harder at my heart than it should, this evening's proceedings considered.

I brush her tears from her face gently, and her eyes flutter open. She swallows, and wipes at her cheek.

"I was dreaming," she says, and her tone is half fact, half question. Her hand latches onto mine, holding me in place. "Stay, until I fall asleep?" I nod, and she slides over to make room under the covers for me. This better not be the beginnings of a habit, Swan, I tell myself sternly, but as I open my eyes to the morning sun, rested and peaceful, I realise I've done it again.


	5. Chapter 5

We're not cuddled up this time, just lying far enough apart that the warmth of her jumps across the gap, lingering in the sheets and on my skin. She's awake, I can tell, her eyes fixed firmly on my face.

"Morning, Sheriff," she says. "I hope this isn't becoming a habit." I laugh, and open my eyes to see her smiling at me across the pillows.

"We've got the hospital today, at eleven."

"Are you coming, then?" I nod. She sounds surprised, and of course she should be. Like ten hours ago I found out she wanted to have me arrested, probably thrown in jail, and now I'm in her bed, again, and promising to look after her. "What about work?"

"It's my day off, but I've got a late shift tomorrow."

"You're being extraordinarily kind, Sheriff," she says. I shift, uneasy with the gratitude. Uneasy too at her closeness, at the smile she's lavishing on me, at how easily I could just roll over and touch her.

Regina makes breakfast, and manages to limit herself to only three or four jibes about yesterday's porridge. Henry and I eat quickly, and I drop him off at school before returning to the mansion. Regina's upstairs getting ready – I can hear her banging about in the cupboards, clearly working out where everything lives – and as I run the washing up water, I can't help but think that all of this is rather nice.

Not the car accident, and, you know, brain damage, but having someone to care for, to care about. I mean, I've got Snow and Charming and Henry, but they've got someone else too. It's nice to be needed, to be someone's first point of call.

"Emma," Regina says from behind me, "how about we go now, and I'll buy you one of these doughnuts you're so fond of?"

Her smile fades, though, as we get outside and she sees the car.

"You expect me to ride in this death trap?" she asks, poking at the tires with her toe. "I can't afford another car crash, so soon after the last."

"The car is fine, Regina. I'm not going to crash, we're not gonna die." She looks at me suspiciously, but climbs in through the open door. Safely installed in the passenger seat, she looks round in disdain. There's crisp packets shoved down the side of the seats, and a greasy burger wrapper in the passenger footwell. It hasn't been hoovered or cleaned in ages, and as I look through Regina's eyes, I see how disgusting my beloved car is.

"Sorry," I say, rather sheepish now. Her pinched face turns to me, and as I pull away from the curb I wait for the tirade.

"I wouldn't expect anything else from you," she says. There's no venom in the tone though, and she says nothing else until we pull up at Granny's.

Regina works the diner like the seasoned politician I've always known her as. She smiles, graciously accepting their well-wishing, enquiring politely about the health of their wives, children, dogs. It's an impressive display of charisma and charm. I stand, and watch her for some time before I realise that she doesn't actually know who any of these people are. She pays for two coffees and one bear claw, and leaves regally, climbing elegantly into the bug.

"How did you do that?" I ask once we've set off again. "You even knew their wives names, or that they'd got kids."

"My files were really rather extensive," she says. "They even had pictures." That must have taken some effort, to run through all those files, memorize names and occupations, put faces to details. Then I realise that of course that was the whole reason behind our little pastry trip. A propaganda coup, and an excellent piece of PR – the mayor's fine, still in charge, still capable. But that's Regina, right, always keeping up appearances.

Doctor Whale tries to shoo me out of the consulting room – patient confidentiality and all that – but Regina's hand latches firmly onto my sleeve.

"The Sheriff will stay," she says, and her tone brooks no disagreement. Whale pushes his jaw forward, unattractively, and sighs, while I can't keep a little victorious smirk from spreading slowly across my features.

The doctor shuffles his papers together, piqued.

"We're very pleased with how the cut on your face is healing," he says. "There's no concussion, no slowing of responses or cognitive function that we can see." He bites his lip, making a note on the paper in front of him.

"And my memories?" Regina asks, leaning forward. Whale's eyes focus unerringly on the cleavage suddenly in display, and I clear my throat. He eyes leap up to mine, and he at least has the decency to look embarrassed.

"Well." There's a pause, full of waiting hope and expectation. "I'm sure they'll come back, in time. As for a timescale, I don't know." Regina's face is expressionless, and I wonder what she's thinking. The past few days she's been readable, but here in the hospital we've gone back to the closed, emotionless Mayor we all knew before the curse broke.

The ride back is silent, like our original trip after the accident. Regina's gaze is fixed again out of the window, and I half want her hand to slide along the dashboard again, fingers linking with my own.

Regina makes coffee, still in silence, and I want to take her mind off the dark places it's going to.

"I got this for you," I say with a lopsided smile, holding up Snow's beloved dramatization of Pride and Prejudice. It's kind of soppy, and the stiff accents and phrasings turn me right off, but I figure this new Regina would appreciate an introduction to culture. Although probably, on that front, I'm not the best guide in the world. We curl up together on the couch, legs tucked underneath us, and watch as the film begins to play. At some point she shifts, rolls her neck, and straightens her legs out in front of her. Before long she shivers.

"My feet are cold," she says, and without thinking I pull her legs up and across mine, so she's laying lengthways on the sofa, head pressed against the arm rest. My hands come to rest on her legs, firm and smooth under my palms. For a moment she looks shocked at the action, but then smiles and relaxes, snuggling further under the blanket as Lizzie Bennet continues on her way.

Neither of has an excuse for my continued nightly presence in Regina's house, and so I return to the apartment. I don't tell Mary Margaret, or anyone, about the computer files, or the restraining order, or Regina's dreams. At night, as I settle into bed, I think of her, tangled in the blankets. Is she crying out? Is she dreaming? My hand hovers over the buttons on my phone, itching to text her, call her, make sure she's alright.

Sometimes I text, and others I don't. But whatever my nightly messaging habits, every Friday the three of us – me, Henry and Regina – have dinner together. Mostly Regina cooks, and sometimes we eat out, and sometimes, with much teasing and laughter, I try to cook, disastrously, then order pizza.

The day the winter lights get turned on, we all troop out together into the street, bundled up in hats and coats. I stand with my parents and Regina, Henry having run off to join his friends a little way off. I catch Regina's eye and smile, with the corner of my mouth, as her gaze travels my face.

"Really, Sheriff," she says, "Don't you think you could have found a hat a little more flattering than that?" She tugs playfully on the long strings that hang down from either side, and grins from the side of her mouth. I laugh, breaths puffing into white clouds that mix with her own.

And then, the unthinkable happens. Right there, in front of everyone, Regina, mayor of Storybrooke, Evil Queen of legend, cups my face in her hands and kisses me. Her lips are soft and warm despite the cold, moving across mine in the sweetest, most gentle kiss I've ever received, and I feel her touch right down to the tips of my toes.

I want to kiss her back, to take this woman in my arms and never let her go. But I'm all too aware of the sudden rash of whispers and how, beside me, I hear Snow's sharp intake of breath, and the spluttering choking of Charming spitting out his drink. I step back, hand held out, fingertips just touching her chest with enough force to stop her momentum following me.

"What are you doing?" I ask. What I mean, I guess, is why are you doing it here, and why now? That's not what she hears.

"I just, I –" I've never seen her so incoherent, not even straight after the crash, and it's horrible. "I thought..."

"Well you thought wrong," hisses Snow over my shoulder, and Regina's face crumples. She stands for a moment, eyes fixed on Snow's face, before her gaze drops to her feet.

"Right. Yes, well – right." She turns on her heel, and is striding away, fast across the frozen ground in her ridiculously high heels. As she passes Henry, she grabs up his hand, pulling him along behind her. He turns round, stares open-mouthed and bewildered at me, one hand raised in goodbye.

I make to follow her, to run after her and put things right, but my mother's hand on my arm stops me.

"You did the right thing," Snow says. "If you'd gone with it, risked your heart, and then she regains her memories and casts you off, then where will you be?"

"Besides," Charming interjects, "it's Regina."

It makes sense, in a hollow, empty kind of way. But watching the spot where Regina had stood, my hand still outstretched to feel the last vestiges of her warmth, I already regret it.


	6. Chapter 6

That Friday, as she stirs the pans on the stove, I twiddle the stem of my wine glass between my fingers.

"Regina," I start, "I'm sorry, about the other night." Her gaze flicks to me, and then away, and she bends to check the meat in the oven.

""It's alright, Sheriff – I understand." She smiles, and turns her head. "I understand." She doesn't understand, her voice again light and casual, masking the hurt underneath.

"Snow shouldn't have spoken to you like that, and I –," I trail off, unsure of how to proceed.

"Well, she doesn't have to worry," Regina says, "I've got the message."

"No," I say, reaching out for her arm, before it is whipped away from under my touch, "What I mean is -,"

"Sheriff." Her tone is hard, cold, decided. "I've told you – it won't happen again."

There's no other mentions of the kiss in the weeks that follow, and nor does she ever try to kiss me again. I get invited, once a week, for dinner and a film on a Friday. When Henry goes to bed I get the feeling I have to leave as well, my glass whisked away from under my fingertips and hastily stacked into the dishwasher. I want to talk to her, to fix my mistake, but Regina seems to manage it so we're never alone long enough to talk. And so time passes, as it always does. We settle into some kind of routine, friendly enough, but never close again. She makes no attempt to bar my access to Henry, and I make sure to always play by her rules.

That's why, as the winter hardens and December hits, one Friday night I hang around in the kitchen as my glass is tidied away, and broach the subject of the holidays.

"I thought, perhaps, you two could have a family Christmas, and then Henry could come to me for New Year." There's only the slightest hitch in her movements, a momentary pause as she bends to a cupboard, but immediately I want to fix it. I remember her face, that day, when we left her uninvited, and wince with the memory. "You're invited too, of course."

She shakes her head, softly, like she regrets the motion.

"Thank you, Emma, but no. I won't intrude on your family." She sighs, and looks away. "You have no idea how odd it is that you all remember things about me that I still don't." She doesn't mention the fact that what Snow and Charming remember is their hatred and distrust of her. When she looks back, she's smiling. "Perhaps I'll go away, take a trip, see some of the things I've forgotten." I nod, understanding.

"New York's good for New Year: Times Square, all the parties. It's a good place to get lost in." Her smile twists sideways, and her eyes catch up with her grin.

"Why, Sheriff, I'm not going to get lost. In fact, I rather think I'll find myself."

And so it goes. New Year at Snow's is lovely, all family fun and games, the kind I had always wished for as a kid. Henry's face at midnight is a real sight to behold, and he's so excited on the phone to his Mom in New York that I wish I'd insisted she stayed. But I didn't, and she didn't, and a few days later, over hot chocolate at Granny's, Henry tells me he thinks she found more than herself on her trip. He doesn't put it quite like that, of course. He tells me how she came back 'dreamy' and how she's been texting, and leaving the room to take phone calls in the evening.

"I think she met someone," he says, frowning. He doesn't look pleased, and, if I'm honest, I guess I'm not either.

"That's a good thing, though, right?" I ask him. "I mean – the whole Evil Queen thing was over a lost love. If she's found someone, and is moving on, it means she's really not the Evil Queen anymore." He nods, but seems unconvinced. I guess my powers of persuasion work better when I really mean what I say.

The year passes, and Regina seems to come no closer to remembering her old life. She carries on with her mayoral duties, and slowly, I notice a change in the way people talk about her. She's not the queen bitch anymore, or just 'her'. It's like people are actually letting her have a second chance, a fresh start to go with her fresh memories.

Henry was right – she meet someone in New York, and the weekends when she leaves him in my care get more frequent. We are in the middle of a town council meeting, sometime in May, when a giant bouquet of flowers arrive with her name on them. She blushes and smiles like a schoolgirl with her first valentine. I suppose, in a way, she is. I leave straight after the meeting, and though I hear someone calling my name and panting footsteps behind me, it's not Regina running after me and so I don't stop, but barrel out through the doors and away.

Our weekly Friday night dinners continue, all through the spring and summer. With the advent of this New York lover, the distance and tension between us seems to melt away with the snows. Some nights, when the day has been hot, we eat outside in the garden and after Henry goes to bed, Regina and I sit there, watching the sun set. Every week I end up leaving late, midnight often, so content am I just to sit in companionable silence with Regina. Those dinners have ended up being the brightest, happiest point of my week, a habit that none of us want to break. Or at least, I don't want to break it. But then, Regina comes to me, in the last weekend of August, and cancels that week's dinner.

"I've invited Frances for the long weekend," she says. I know what a big deal this is – Regina has never suggested bringing her lover to Storybrooke before. And all the while she was elsewhere, I could almost pretend she wasn't real. "You'll come to the party though, on Saturday?" Oh yeah – the Labor day fete Regina's been organizing for weeks – there goes my plan to hide in the apartment with a case of beers and multiple take-away pizzas till the danger has passed.

"Wouldn't miss it for anything," I say, and it's the truth.

Saturday lunchtime is bright, one of the last days of summer, with no fall coldness in the air. It seems like the whole town is packed into Regina's garden, drinks and hot dogs stuffed into their hands. I can't see Regina anywhere, and I find myself hanging around the apple tree. The branch I chainsawed away has healed in the intervening time, covering over. The branch is still gone, of course, but the stump no longer looks quite so raw and angry. It's a lot like Regina herself, I think, and my hand drifts up to run along the surface.

"Hello," says a voice from behind me, and I jump and turn, my drink slopping over the edge of the glass and down my front. The woman in front of me is immaculately tailored and coiffed, just like Regina. Compared to her I feel scruffy, unkempt, all too aware of the fraying edges of my jeans, and the scuff marks on my jacket. My hair's escaping from its tie and blowing across my face, and my shirt is covered in still lemonade.

"Frances Hartnett," she says, extending her hand for me to shake. Her voice is deep, rich, full of confidence, and just drips with money and education. If there was ever a person to compare myself against and come out of it well, she wouldn't be the one I chose. "You must be the famous Emma Swan. I've heard all about you." Normally, that's just a simple pleasantry to be said and ignored, but in her mouth it sounds almost like a warning, or a threat.

"You have?"

"Oh yes." She smiles, tightly, and then frowns. "What I want to know, is am I going to have any trouble from you?"

It's not what I expected her to say. I don't quite know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. I swallow the rest of my drink with a gulp.

"Trouble how?" She sighs, and puts her hand on my arm, turning me away from the crowd.

"Look," she says, "I really like Regina, and Henry. And I think we could really make a go of this. If we're given the chance."

"I'm not in your way, Frances," I say, but I know that I am. That I want to be, which is still pretty incomprehensible.

"You are. I don't know what kind of fucked up relationship you two have, but I'm telling you now to back off." I'm about to reply, I really am, something clever and sophisticated, but then Regina herself is there, hand resting casually on Frances' back.

"What are you two talking about over here?" she says, bright and cheerful. My throat works soundlessly, and Frances steps in.

"You, actually. And what a great party this is." Regina beams at the praise, gazing devotedly into Frances' face. "Come on, babe, introduce me to everyone." And off they go, winding their way through the townsfolk, the very image of a modern power couple. Then my phone buzzes, and I'm called away to the station. On my way out, Regina catches me for a hug and as I pull back I see Frances staring at me, her warning still clear. I nod at her in reply, the muscles of my jaw tight, my teeth locked in place against each other.

I don't see them for the rest of her visit, probably because I make a point not to go anywhere other than the station and the apartment. Henry comes over once, and he's so full of Frances and his Mom, so happy for them. I try to hide my own feelings, but he gets that there's something up and changes the subject to safer ground – comics and school.

As Charming takes him home, Snow comes and sits next to me on the couch. She doesn't say anything, and doesn't have to. I lean my head into her shoulder, and cry. When Charming comes home, a look of confused concern on his face, she waves him away and we sit together until the small hours of the morning.


	7. Chapter 7

I can't help it, the flaring jealousy in the pit of my stomach, when Regina or Henry mention Frances in the coming days. I know I have no reason to feel hard done by, I had my chance, and I turned her away, twice.

As the winter turns, and the leaves begin to fall, I hole up in the station, doughnuts piling up uneaten in the bins. The crime levels hardly warrant it, but I find myself taking longer and longer shifts, volunteering for night and weekend duties. Friday nights are still sacrosanct – nobody ever asks to swap me for a Friday night off – but the dinners are not so regular.

I can't do it, not after actually meeting Frances. I mean so what if the woman came at me swinging? I'd probably have swung right back at her, given the chance. I might dream about Frances suddenly buying a one way ticket to Europe, but I see how Regina talks these days, happy and content, and how do I jeopardize that? So some weeks, I invent other invitations. I say I have a date, or the wedding of an old friend, and I harden myself against Henry's disappointment, and my own aching empty feelings all evening long.

Then, one day, so quickly I hadn't realized it, it's a year, a full year, since I took that panicked phone call. The mayor turns it into a PR exercise, launching a road safety initiative, smiling and charming the cameras and citizenry in one fell swoop. I watch, silently, from the sidelines, and reflect on how far we've come.

Regina catches my eye across the packed town hall, and smiles. After her talk, she makes her way through the crowd, stopping to talk to each person she passes, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries. She's good at this, even without the burning desire to scheme and plot the downfall of others. She's still got the seductive charm, the ambition, that driving work ethic, but it's all less… unhinged and unhealthy.

Regina stands next to me, facing out into the room, empty glass held loosely in her fingers. The light plays on her hair, and I wish I had the right to run my hands through it, to hold her close to me, body pressed flush against my own. I don't have the right, I gave it up, and so I content myself with staring at her profile as she stares out across the room.

"The council elections are coming up next year," she says. "I intend to run."

"I wouldn't expect any less, Madame Mayor," I say.

The polished exterior drops for a second, and real expression floods her face.

"Do I stand a chance, do you think? Or are fairytale characters like elephants," she pauses, scanning the room to check no-one's in ear shot, "fat and grey?" I spit my drink across the room, drawing surprised and inquiring looks. Regina stands besides me, smirking, mask back in place and arms folded, clearly well pleased with herself.

"You're still evil, you know that?"

"Oh Emma," she says, "you don't know the half of it." Her voice drops to the floor, sending chills right through me. Combined with the look she shoots in my direction, I feel the blush racing up my neck and cheeks. Regina's face suddenly freezes in panic, taking in the choking colour I've gone, and as she virtually bolts back into the crowd, I'm left gaping for air like a stranded fish.

"Oh, do put your eyes back in your head," snaps Snow irritably from behind my shoulder. Her hands are planted firmly on her hips, and her eyes burn with angry defiance. I'm glad, for an instant, that that gaze is not directed at me. But when I follow it's trail, half expecting to see anyone it touches burst spontaneously into flames, I find, of course, that it's centred right on Regina.

There's a plan forming in that head, and she tosses her ever-growing hair back behind her shoulder.

"So Regina thinks she'll be mayor again, does she?" As her jaw grind together and she stomps away muttering, "I'll see about that," I know that I'm in for a long, long winter.

The apartment quickly fills with campaign paraphernalia. Snow's face stares out at me from posters, billboards, and badges. The counter tops pile high with her manifestos, and she takes to pacing in front of the telly, rehearsing her arguments out loud. I mean, seriously, I don't reckon people running for President spend as much time thinking about it as Snow does. Even at Thanksgiving, which we spend at the town hall, eating an enormous with the entire population – I know, I know, extreme small town syndrome – I can see her mind working, thoughts and arguments and plans grinding out across her face. It leaves our small group – Snow, Charming, Ruby and me – sat in a kind of bubble from everyone else.

Regina, by contrast, sitting at the other end of the hall, seems totally unflustered. She laughs and eats heartily, talking about everything and nothing to those around her. She might not remember them, but all those years as Mayor have to have left some kind of permanent skills behind, latent, perhaps, and subconscious, but there nonetheless.

"Emma," says Snow from beside me, and it takes a second for me to really realize she's no longer just muttering to herself, that a response is required. "Emma, you will be supporting my campaign for Mayor, right?" Expectant glares fix on me from both Snow and Charming, and Ruby nosily pauses too, fork hanging inches away from her open mouth.

"Of course," I say, and Snow looks pleased. My eyes flit to Regina again, and when I look back, may parents' smiles have become rather fixed. "Privately, of course. The Sheriff's office has to be seen to be impartial, in things like this."

There's a moment of quiet as the others process what I've just said. I can see from Snow's face she wants to be outraged, wants to demand my total and unflinching loyalty, but then her face softens and she nods in understanding.

I have to have a similar conversation with Regina, just a few days later. She's in the station, perched on my desk as I search through the unsorted stacks of paperwork for precisely the one document Regina needs.

"When the election season begins," she says, "I trust I can count on your support, Sheriff?" I look up from the desk, eyes almost exactly in line with her cleavage, before I force myself to carry on up to her eyes.

"Yes," I say, and nod. "But privately. The Sheriff's office has to be seen to be impartial, in things like this." It sounds rehearsed, this time, staged. She laughs, and looks at me with one eye.

"You told Miss Blanchard the same thing, didn't you?" Now it's my turn to laugh, caught in my not-quite deception. I hold out the files for her to take, and shrug.

"You can't blame a girl for wanting an easy life, Regina." Suddenly the levity and laughter is gone, and Regina's face falls, her lips pressing into a thin line. She stands abruptly, almost snatching the folder from my fingers.

"I'm well aware that has always been your position, Miss Swan." And then, with no more words or backwards glances, Regina is gone, the door slamming loudly behind her.

All that week I try to think of an excuse to turn down Friday dinner, but in the end I don't need to.

"I'm sorry to disturb your easy life," Regina says, hard and biting down the phone line, "but I'd like you to have Henry this weekend. I will be out of town from Friday till Sunday evening." She doesn't say where she's going, and I don't have to ask.

At Christmas, Regina throws the town another party. Snow moans and grumbles about the blow to her campaign and considers not going, but somehow Charming, and I don't think I wanna know exactly how, talks her round. The three of us stand there together on Regina's doorstep, their faces set with determination to enjoy the evening, mine a carefully controlled mask.

When Regina opens the door it's immediately obvious she's gone all out with the decorations and party preparations. There's even a live band playing somewhere in the house, currently belting out Perry Como at full blast. She gives us a controlled smile, her politician's look, and invites us into the house with a sweep of her arm.

Snow and Charming exchange the usual banalities, and then head off further into the house, searching for drinks and Ruby.

"Thank, you know, for inviting us," I say. A smile flickers briefly across her face and then slips right off.

"There's food and drink in the kitchen, all laid out for easy taking," she says, and then turns and melts into the crowd of her guests.

I hang around in the kitchen, chatting to people as they came to fill their plates, and stealing bits and pieces off each of the serving plates. I've not been there long – maybe fifteen minutes or so – when Frances turns up, and helps herself to another drink, leaning against the kitchen counter opposite me.

I wait for the telling off, wait for the warning. Regina's clearly upset with me, and I fully expect to hear all about it from her girlfriend. I take another sausage roll, and brace myself against the table. But instead of the hammer blow I thought was coming, Frances opens with praise for the party, for the friendliness of Storybrooke, for Granny's diner and for the good manners of my son.

"It's Regina you should thank for that," I say. It's at that moment, before we tread on the dangerous ground of Regina, that Snow interrupts the conversation.

"Thanks, Snow," I say, and only then notice Frances' look. She's frowning in confusion, but over what I have no idea.

"Your friend," she says, gesturing with her hand, "you call her Snow." I nod, and I know what she's gearing up to ask. "And her boyfriend – they call him Charming."

"Yes," I agree, "we do."

"And the girl stood with them, her name's Ruby, right? She runs Granny's diner, but sometimes I hear them call her Red." I can't suppress the smile that spreads across my face. This is exactly why people fought so hard against the removal of the town border, against allowing outsiders to live amongst us. At some point they'd always make the connection, and wonder why so many people had such interesting names. "So what's the deal, then?"

"Well," I say, and sigh deeply. "Basically, they're all fairytale characters brought here by an evil curse that wiped their memories. They've regained them now, and have gone back to their old names." It's the truth, but Frances looks at me askew. "So you're right – that's Snow White, and Prince Charming, and Red Riding Hood. Then over there is Jiminy Cricket, the shady looking guy in the trenchcoat is the magic mirror, and the kids talking to Henry are Hansel and Gretel."

"And who are you?"

"I'm the White Knight." I scratch my nose, distractedly. "Or the Saviour, if I'm being humble." She laughs at that, as though the idea of me saving anything is patently ridiculous.

"Right," she says, "and Regina?"

"That's obvious, isn't it?" I ask. "Regina means queen, you know. She's Snow White's Evil Queen – the curse was her doing." By now Frances is looking at me like I'm legitimately crazy. "I wouldn't ask her about it though – she's kinda touchy on the subject."

"Ask me what?" says Regina from the doorway. Frances looks up, and I start awkwardly.

"Emma was telling me how you're all characters from myth and legend or something," Frances laughs. The strain around Regina's eyes is immediately apparent, but she shrugs it off.

"Oh yes," she says, hunching her shoulders into her best old crone impersonation, pulling a pastry off the table next to her, "and here's a nice apple treat for you, dearie." We laugh, and Frances brushes her away, and heads out into the hallway.

Regina and I are left alone in the kitchen.

"You told her," she says. "What were you trying to do? Put her off me? Send her running for the hills?" Her gaze is heavy, accusing, and I shrug.

"She thinks it's a weird kind of town-wide joke, Regina. It's enough of the truth to stop the questions." Her face is still drawn into a frown, angry I suppose that even now she can't escape her past. I lower my voice, below the point where anyone else will hear me. "You know that Snow will reference it at some point in her campaign – it's basically what her whole platform is built on – and Frances might as well be prepared."

"So this is your private support, eh," Regina says, eyebrows loosening their hold on her face. I nod and smile, hopeful that things are patched between us. She turns to lean next to me on the counter, and my arm brushes the side of her breast through her shirt. She's warm and soft against me, and I have to focus to force all my attention away from that one point of contact and the longing feelings raging through me.

Then she smiles.

"I knew I was your favourite for Mayor," she says, and I can't find it in me to disagree.


	8. Chapter 8

In the New Year, the campaigns for Mayor kick off full force. There's debates and copious photo ops. The two debate hospital funding, road safety, education initiatives and crime prevention strategies.

Regina denies any involvement, of course, but the paper's coverage is decidedly biased. Sidney runs a full page spread on the two candidates, and the photo of Regina is breathtaking. It's supposed to be a natural pose, a paparazzi type shot, of her and Henry chatting animatedly over breakfast at Granny's. The lighting on Regina is soft and warm, and the smile on her face as she looks at her son is beatific, saintly in its kindness and love. Snow's photo by contrast, is clearly taken early in the morning, the harsh flash of the camera bulb glinting sweatily on her cheeks. She's in her 'comfy' clothes, and is clutching a grocery bag that anyone can see contains alcohol. It's the kind of picture glossy magazines run on celebrities that have hit rock bottom, or just been done for shoplifting.

The actual copy, too, leans heavily in the incumbent's favour. Snow's article references her arrest for the murder of her lover's wife, although it's careful to point out that she was never convicted. Meanwhile Regina is described as glowing, elegant, charming, and no mention is made of her shady deals with Gold, or the suspicions we all entertained about her leadership. I suppose, if I'm being generous, the woman those stories are about is not the one running today. And besides, now Storybrooke is opened up to the outside world, how can its paper really run with the story that the Mayor was once a magical evil queen?

At the last public hustings the town files into the town hall, and shuffle along the rows of seats, just like when I was elected Sheriff. Henry and Frances sit at the front, beaming up at Regina. Henry beckons for me to join them, but Charming's hand guides me down next to him.

Archie sits in the chairman's place, and calls the meeting to order. The first bit's tedious as they rehash the same old arguments they've been trotting out for weeks, but then comes excitement as the floor is opened up to questions. The townsfolk want answers on seemingly hundreds of questions, and it's the perfect opportunity for Regina to showcase just how good she is off the cuff and unprepared.

Snow stumbles on some questions, her lack of practical experience as an elected official rather than a hereditary monarch tripping her up. As she splutters and rambles, Regina's eyes gleam with purpose and delight. Up on the stage, destroying her opponent piece by piece, I think we're all seeing flashes of the Evil Queen, but now her biting wit and stinging put-downs are tempered with smiles and humour, acknowledging Snow's skills and strengths, graciously conceding small points in order to reclaim the big ones. It's a textbook performance, and undeniably attractive.

Then, just as I think it's all over, there's time for one last question from the audience.

"Sheriff Swan, can you give us your position on who should be Mayor?"

Up on the stage, Snow visibly stiffens.

"I think it's unwise for the Sheriff's department to make any judgment on these matters," I say. "My office will always cooperate fully with the elected Mayor, whoever that might be."

For a moment, Snow relaxes, but then her eyes flick across to Regina, still sat elegantly in her chair, leant backwards, as though without a care in the world.

"And your personal opinion?" There's a growing murmur from the crowd.

"I really don't think that's a fair question," Archie says, trying to intervene from his chairman's seat. I wave him down, already prepared for the answer.

"As people will know, I live with Mary Margaret, and Regina adopted my son." I smile out across the audience, "I will be as happy to see either one win as I will to see the other lose." It's a cop out, I know, but it's the safest option. Regina smiles, but Snow's face is red from the collar up, the colour reaching right into her hairline.

Then the debate's over, and the candidates descend from the stage into the crowd, shaking hands and exhorting people to vote. Charming's wounded glance, firmly fixed in my direction, is enough to drive me from the hall and out towards the car park.

As I walk along the corridor, hands pressed into my pockets against the cold, a door opens in front of me. Regina's head appears, and she pulls me by my arm into the classroom, shutting the door behind us.

"So, Sheriff," she says, "how did that go, do you think?" At one time, when she called me Sheriff, or Miss Swan, it came off like an insult, like mockery and disdain, but now it seems almost affectionate.

"Do you want the professional opinion, or the personal one?"

"Neither – I want the real one."

"You were very good, Madame Mayor," I say, and she gestures with her hand for me to continue, closing her eyes and smirking like the cat that got the cream. When I don't speak, she pokes me.

"Go on, what else?"

"You totally thrashed her, Regina, as you well know." The words are out of my mouth before I've realized the door is open and Snow and Charming stand there, listening.

"Emma!" They speak together, with one disapproving voice. The hurt is Snow's gaze is palpable, and the disappointment there is a look I've seen over and over on the faces of social workers, foster parents, and even on the face of my own son. After all those times, you'd think it would hurt less, but it doesn't.

Regina's hand is warm on my elbow, reassuring, and I want to sink into her embrace, hide my face in her neck and ignore the rest of the world. But Frances is somewhere in the building, and I don't even know, these days, that my advances would be welcomed.

"Snow," Regina says, shaking her head, "I think you just have to face it. If Emma thinks I'd be the better Mayor, I'm fairly certain everyone will too." She smiles, in fake sympathy, but I feel the triumph seeping from her in waves.

"If you think that anybody here who knows the real you, will willingly vote for the evil queen," growls Charming, "you need to get your head examined!"

"But don't you remember? I'm not the Queen anymore. I'm nothing more than an evil witch." She pauses, and smiles slowly, the grin spreading across her face like a plague, like a warning klaxon. I can see twin frowns taking up residence on Snow and Charming's faces, their spread mirroring Regina's frankly quite scary smirk. "Except I'm not evil anymore, or particularly witchy."

Regina turns to leave, but freezes halfway through the motion. Our three heads turn too, and follow her line of sight. There in the doorway, hand clasped in Henry's, stands Frances, mouth slightly open in disbelief.

I reach out my hand for Regina's arm, but whether to force her to go, or ask her to stay, I don't know. She shrugs me off, blazer slipping down one shoulder.

"Frances," she says, and her voice hitches brokenly in the middle, "wait." But Frances is gone, the edges of her coat disappearing around the doorframe. Regina follows, pulling Henry along behind her, and I hear the tap-tap-tap of her heels retreating down the corridor, getting faster and faster as she breaks out into a run.

That evening, I take myself to Granny's to escape the chilly atmosphere in the apartment. Snow is still pacing, still muttering to herself, while Charming sits and watches her, worriedly. Neither speaks directly to me, and I just know I'm going to have to work up a giant apology to get myself out of this one. I sit dejectedly at the counter and have ordered my food before I even notice the woman sitting in the window seat, half-heartedly sipping at a cup of coffee.

"She's been there ages," Ruby says, once she notices the object of my attention. I tell her to bring my order over to the window table and stand up, taking my drink with me.

I stand, awkwardly, for a second by her table before sliding into the chair opposite her, and give a wan attempt at a smile. She sit together in silence, the space stretching out between us. She's clearly working herself up to something, nodding slowly and twisting her mouth in a half-smile. It's like the responses to a silent conversation only she can hear, and so when her voice comes out of nowhere, I'm not totally surprised.

"Regina says that you weren't always here, that you lived in Boston before."

"And all over – I moved around a lot before Henry found me."

"How did you deal with the whole fairytale thing?" Her gaze is direct, piercing.

"I didn't!" I laugh, but Frances' face doesn't move an inch. I can't tell her that my denial was so strong, I literally couldn't see the proof in front of my face. Flippancy's not gonna get me out of this one, I realize.

"Look," I say, "it's weird, I know. I had to come to terms with the fact that my roommate was not only Snow White, but also my mother. My son was being raised by the Evil Queen, a dragon was hiding under the library, and Rumplestiltskin was running a pawn shop." I'm aware of Ruby's keen attention, and I know pretty much anything I say will be straight back to Snow as soon as I've left the diner. "But if you love Regina, really love her, none of this should be important. It's over now, done, and she doesn't remember any of it." I look away, out of the window across the street, and when I look back, Frances is swirling her coffee around the mug aimlessly.

"If I really love her," she repeats, softly, as though I'm not intended to hear it. Then her eyes come up to meet mine. "Like you do, you mean?"

And what do I say to that?


	9. Chapter 9

I stare down at the key in my hand, my skin reddening in the cold winter air. The door it opens stands shut in front of me, as it has for fifteen minutes.

Frances had pressed it into my hand across the table.

"She needs you," she said, and looked away. Her coffee must have been stone cold, but she took a drink anyway, grimacing at the taste.

"Not you?" I asked. "Not," and the word choked me, "her girlfriend?" The coffee mug hit the table with a bang.

"Emma, I think we both know I'm just a stand-in. You two share a son, and a life, and now some fucking fairytale birthplace." She sighed, deeply, and her shoulders sagged a little as though she was deflating right there in front of my eyes. "If I were going to pick a woman to compete against and come out on top, it wouldn't be you."

I looked at her then, as kindly as I could.

"I thought the same, you know, about you."

She folded the key more firmly into my hand, curling her fingers around my closed fist.

"Look," Frances said, "she made me watch that Pride and Prejudice DVD over and over again. And here's the thing. I'm Wickham, and you're Darcy." She smiled, and cocked her head. "Without the whole sex with her sister bit. But my point is, I'm just a diversion, and Regina needs the real plot to restart."

The key slides home easily, even in the dark. It feels right, to let myself in like this, like I've suddenly had a flash-forward of what my life could be. The door swings open to the dark entrance hall. No Regina or Henry come running to greet me, to check who it is. I check the time on my phone – long past Henry's bedtime. I'm sure Regina hasn't let that slip, even with everything else going on. I pick my way across the hall, following a sliver of light that is leaking from under a door.

Regina is in the kitchen, frenetically scrubbing at a spot on the counter top. She doesn't look round as I enter, and nor does she stop her cleaning. I lay my hand on hers, squeezing to get her attention. Her face comes up to meet mine, eyes red rimmed and swollen. Her hands, too, are puckered and cold, held too long against wet rags.

"Regina, I think it's time for bed."

"It's only ten o'clock," she says, but her protest falls on deaf ears. I usher her upstairs, hand on the small of her back. She checks in on Henry, tucks the duvet tighter around his shoulders and presses a kiss into the ruffle of his hair.

She looks up at me, hand still on Henry's shoulder.

"It was worth it," she says, "all of it. No matter how many lovers I lose, it was all worth it, for him."

In the main bedroom, Regina changes slowly into her nightclothes, as I awkwardly avert my gaze. I send it flying about the room, taking in the changes a year and a girlfriend have wrought. The most obvious change is the bag of Frances' things that still sits open on the chair in the bedroom, her nightclothes folded neatly on the top.

"Where is she?" Regina asks, weakly, as she climbs under the covers. I sit down beside her, twisting to look down at her, hair darkly haloed around her face.

"She'll be back in the morning," I say, smoothing the hair back from her brow.

"Not for long though." There's defeat in her voice, and even I can read between the lines. Regina just can't leave the past behind her – no matter what she does, or how hard she tries. "She's right to run a mile from the Evil Queen."

"Former Evil Queen," I protest, but she shakes her head sadly.

"I've told you, Sheriff, people don't change," she says. "They just fool themselves into thinking they can." The phrase is familiar, and tugs at the back of my mind, but first and foremost I remember what I told Henry, all that time ago, that Regina's past was set in motion by the loss of a love, and it gives me pause.

"You're not gonna go all Evil Queen on us again?" She frowns at me.

"No," she says with a firmer shake of her head. "Frances is… Frances is lovely, but she's not…"

"Not your true love," I finish for her, mouth twisting into a wry smile. I've heard the story from Snow, and the thought of him is like a knife in my gut. Her hand comes up to trace my face, fingers gently moving across the lines of my lips, my cheeks, trailing over my eyebrows. She smoothes away the quirk of my lips, then sits up and presses her face to the flat of my shirt, high against my collarbone.

"You're an idiot, Emma Swan," Regina says against my chest, hands gripping the fabric of my shirt. I curl my hand through her hair, stroking at the back of her neck.

"I know," I say. "Trust me, babe, I know."

Regina leans back, hands sliding up to rest on my shoulders. She stares at me, eyes hopeful and searching. Our faces are a hand's span apart, and her breath buffets against my mouth, warm and sweet. She smiles, gently, and I feel my own face break out into the mirror image. Slowly, so slowly she's barely moving, Regina closes the gap between us.

Despite the slowness of her advance, the press of her lips is firm, demanding. My mouth opens beneath hers, and her lips slide between mine, tongues touching, my body's response to the call of her kiss undeniable.

Regina breaks the kiss, pulls away until she can look into my eyes.

"She's not you," she says.

She lays down on the bed, pulling me with her so that I'm curled along her back, knees fit snug against the bend of her own, arm wrapped tight across her stomach. My phone buzzes consistently in my pocket, and I know its Snow, worrying about why I haven't come home. I ignore her, throwing the phone across the room, sending it skidding under the chair.

As the morning light streams through the window, filling the room with brightness, Regina turns in my arms.

"Morning, Sheriff," she says. "I sincerely hope this is becoming a habit." I laugh, and open my eyes to see her smiling at me across the pillows.

"So do I." I lean across the cotton space between us, and capture her lips in a kiss.

Regina rolls off the bed, and points at me.

"Stay right there," she says, and backs slowly out of the room.

Once she's gone, I roll over onto my back, and throw an arm across my still adjusting eyes. The leather creak of my jacket reminds me I've slept in my clothes, and I shrug out of the jacket, dropping it carelessly to the floor. In days to come, I'm sure Regina will force me into tidiness, but today of all days, I reckon, I'm pretty safe.

The door opens, and I lift my head to see Regina come through the door and lean against it.

"Henry's still asleep," she says, and turns to lock the door behind her.

As she crosses the room I'm put in mind of a cat, stalking its prey. I lie there, waiting, and watch with anticipation as she crawls across the bed covers, knees on either side of my legs, and lowers her head to mine.

Her kiss is tender, exploring, and I reach my arms up to wrap around her neck, pulling her weight down to rest along the length of my frame. Her nose pushes my head to the side, biting and sucking at my exposed neck. I can't help it when my hands flies up to tangle in her hair, my head lolling to the side to give her better access. I mean, God, I feel fourteen again, thinking hickeys are the sexiest thing in the world, but with every movement of her mouth on my skin I can feel myself growing wetter. Then she hits the spot right at the join of neck and shoulder, and her teeth bite into the muscle. I groan, loudly, and she lets go.

I roll us over, and as I hold myself above her, I realize how long I have wanted to know the sights and sounds of her, the smells of her. The way the skin of her thighs is smooth under my hands, and her hair tickles at my cheek. The smell of her breast as it meets her chest, or the glistening sheen of sweat that builds between our bodies. The frantic clutching of her hands, and the scratching of her nails against my back. The twitches and breathy moans as they're ripped from her throat, the rhythmically clamping warmth of her around my hand.

Footsteps from the corridor send us rolling apart and frantically pull on my outer clothes as I cross to the door, bra and underpants kicked quickly under the bed, pulling my hair over my shoulder to hide the purpling bruise I know is gonna be there. As I open the door, Regina settles herself under the covers, smiling to see Henry stood on the other side.

"Frances is downstairs," he says, frown creasing his face into deep furrows. Regina's face falls, and she swallows shallowly.

"Tell her I'll be right down," she says. As Henry retreats, and I close the door behind him, Regina looks at me, eyes regretful. Her gaze slips from my face to Frances' open bag.

"I can climb out of the window," I offer awkwardly, but she shakes her head, extending her hand to me. I move to take it in my own, seating myself on the edge of the bed. The motion pulls the cover off her shoulders, slipping down to reveal a toned expanse of skin. I expect her to pull the sheet up, overcome with modesty, but she lets it stay, her hand instead brushing the hair from my face.

"No," she says, "she gave you her key. She knows you're here." I turn my head, press a kiss to her hand.

When we get downstairs, Frances is waiting in the hallway, pacing the floor, one step on each carefully polished tile. As Regina said, she was clearly expecting my presence, but her face hardens anyway as I come down the stairs behind Regina, jaw setting in a grim line.

She gathers her things in almost total silence, and I make sure to stay out of her way.

"Stay in touch," Regina says, placing her hand on Frances' shoulder, and squeezing.

"Maybe not," she says, and carries her bag out through the door.

I watch her walk down the path towards the road, the lines of her back set as if against a cold wind. I've been on the receiving end of too many dumpings and betrayals not to understand that posture. Even when you know it's for the best, even when it's supposedly your idea, it never goes down easy.

My hand in my jeans pocket closes on something hard and cold – the key. There seems to be no conscious command between my brain and my muscles, but somehow I'm running, bare feet tripping along the paving slabs. The stone is freezing, and as I reach her Frances looks down at my feet, her expression tight.

"Look, I gotta ask - why did you give me the key?" It's in my hand, the hard ridged edges cutting against my palm. "The first day I met you, you totally warned me off." Frances smiles, self-consciously, and twitches under the weight of my gaze.

"She told me everything," she says, "all about being the Evil Queen. We started at the beginning and went right through. The more I heard, the easier all that fairytale stuff was to understand." I can feel my eyebrows drawing together, confusedly. "Then we got to the bit when Henry runs off and finds you. And I knew, from the way she told it, that she'd loved you since the day you turned up on her doorstep."

Her eyebrows quirk with some emotion I can't identify, and she turns to walk away, feet set firmly in the direction of her car.

"Wait!" I call, her words sinking in, "since the day I turned up?"

"She said that you brought Henry back, and then, when she offered you a drink, you said 'Got anything stronger?'" Frances' impression of me is unnervingly accurate, and I hate to think the amount of practice it would take to get my voice just so. "She'd got this smile on her face, you know, that she didn't even know she was doing. And I realized she'd only ever smiled at Henry like that, and never at me."

"But," I sputter, "Regina doesn't remember the first time we met. The accident…she's got amnesia." It sounds weak, even to my own ears. Regina clearly _does_ remember. Then Frances laughs, properly laughs.

"You are completely out of your league." She rubs her hand across her eyes, and sighs. "She's a very good politician, Emma. Does it surprise you she's also a very good actor?"


	10. Chapter 10

I watch the car pull away from the curb and disappear into the distance, ignoring the burn of the cold path under my feet in my shock. Those familiar phrases that only briefly tugged at my memory now burn full force, acting like neon signs to the truth.

The thought that I've been played all along is hard to resist, that all of this was simply another trick to gain my sympathies – and other things – before crushing me once and for all under her fashionable heel. Snow warned me, I know, but I never believed it. I still don't. Or, at least, I don't want to believe it.

There's some things even Regina wouldn't fake – not remembering Henry, showing me the restraining order, allowing me to try cooking in her pristine kitchen.

"Emma!" Her voice carries crisp and clear in the cold morning air. "What are you doing out there?"

As if she doesn't know. As if she was ever weak and vulnerable and innocent. Not in this world, in this life. Not where I was concerned. There's always been a greater plan, a driving motive, and it's always been to get rid of me and mine for good.

I pivot, and march back up the path to the house, Regina and Henry still framed in the doorway. It's hard to stamp convincingly in socks, but my footsteps are still heavy, deliberate, and as I draw nearer the smile slips from her face.

"Henry," I say, "I need you to go to your room." My voice is hard, and I don't think I've ever spoken to him like it before. I sound like the parade of social workers and government disciplinarians I was forced before in my childhood. I sound like Mary Margaret, on the days she managed to control her students.

I sound like Regina.

"But, Mom," he whines, and I don't know who he's appealing to: me, or her. Regina nods.

"Go on, Henry. Miss Swan and I need to talk." He turns, dejectedly, and trails up the stairs towards his room. At the top he pauses, hand on the banister, and looks back at us, unmoving. Regina's stare forces him onwards, and when the door to his room closes shut she finally turns to me. I gesture towards the study, and together we cross the hall. Inside, she sits at her desk, and I lean against the door, shutting it behind us.

The movement so exactly mirrors Regina's earlier that my heart flutters in remembered excitement. But my intention is so far removed from hers, it's like we're two completely different people.

"You poisonous bitch," I say, surprised at the venom and anger in my voice. "I should never have trusted you."

She sighs, tiredly.

"So you've found me out, Sheriff." She swivels on the chair, facing away from me. I can see her head hit the back of the chair, and watch as her fingers curl around the arm rests. She wants me to think she couldn't care less, that this was yet another mayoral scheme that went awry, but I'm onto her now.

I cross the room with measured, angry steps, and pull the chair to face me. There's tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, but she blinks them away, her face blankly stoic.

"Do run home and tell Mommy, won't you, that she was right."

My hands close over her wrists, keeping her in place. Her eyes skitter along the desk surface, taking in everything and nothing, never resting on anything for more than a moment. I've always prided myself on knowing who's lying and who's not, and this is the expression of someone with a secret.

"Tell me, Regina," I say, punctuating her name with a squeeze of my hands, "tell me – was it all a lie, right from the beginning?"

"No." Her voice is firm and her eyes meet mine, then, wide open, willing me to trust her. "I found myself knowing things – things that weren't in my files. Like the fact that Henry has cinnamon in his hot chocolate, or that he hates prawns."

At the mention of Henry, she smiles, soft and gentle. I know, then, the kind of smile Frances meant. The kind of smile she said was directed at the thought of me. The idea drops through my stomach with sickening speed.

"You know," she says, "that I had dreams – you were there. You held me through them." She stands up, moving out further into the room, pacing up and down. The anxious movement is like a bluffer's tell, action to disguise emotion. But, so far at least, there's no sign she's lying. "I had them every night, but unlike proper dreams they didn't fade as the day went on. Then one day I thought to myself – I suppose they're memories."

And there's the crunch.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask. "Why didn't you say that you'd remembered?" I sit, heavily, on the chair she's vacated.

"Why didn't you ask?" It's true enough, I suppose. There came a time, after the winter lights, when I stopped asking whether she'd remembered or not. It wasn't a lack of caring, or curiosity – quite the opposite, in fact.

Then she sighs, and comes to sit back down on the arm rest beside me, her hand landing on my leg. Logically, I know I should flinch, or pull away. I don't. I can't bring myself to reject her again, even now. Especially now, perhaps.

"Do you remember the day of the winter lights?" she asks. "As I… left, I heard Charming say 'Besides, it's Regina.'" She pushes her jaw to the side, and her eyebrows rise in disdain. "They hated me that much, when I had no idea why. I thought that if I did, if I remembered, then you and Henry and the whole town would hate me again too."

"I get it. You'd be back to being the Evil Queen, even though you didn't wanna be her anymore."

"I never wanted to be her," she says, fiercely, and I find that I believe her. There's a long moment of silence that stretches out between us. Finally, Regina goes to pull away, to stand up, and her hand slips along my thigh. I catch it in my own, and hold her close.

"I understand," I say, and surprisingly I do. The lure of fresh starts is almost overwhelming, and I've given in to that temptation enough times to know. Usually I'd just have packed up and run a thousand miles, but Regina couldn't do that. Not with Henry, and her job, and the small problem of being a transplanted fairytale character. "Might not be what I'd have done, but I understand."

She laces her fingers through mine, staring down at our joined hands. When she speaks again, it's in a dreamy, far-off voice, her eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance.

"You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles." It's poetry, I know, and even though I don't recognize it, I know what it's saying, and what she's saying with it. The hate, the anger and the hurt that came bundled up with being the Evil Queen – she's let it all go, used the amnesia to untie their heaviness from her ankles and become, hopefully, who she has always wanted to be.

"So what now, Sheriff? You call a baying mob, and tell them how I've deceived them, again?"

"No. Now we get Henry and go to Granny's for breakfast." She looks up at me, mouth working soundlessly. I know, I know. Bit of a change of tack. Then again, I've never managed to stay mad at Regina for long, not even when she tried to kill me with pastry.

"Hey, I'm a growing girl, you know!"

"Only outwards, Miss Swan," she says, and smiles.

The day the election results come in, it's as I always knew it would be. Four to one it goes, in favour of Regina. Four to one.

I stand with Snow and Charming in the apartment, surrounded by sadly sagging congratulatory posters and decorations, and do my best to look sympathetic and understanding.

"Oh well," Snow sighs, "at least I know you two voted for me." Charming reaches his hands out and folds her into a hug, her face pressed against his chest. I don't say anything, just smile weakly and grind my toe against the floor.

"You did vote for me, Emma?" Snow's head turns against Charming's embrace, her gaze staring out at me with frightening intensity.

"Yes," I say, hoping I sound confident. "Yes I did." Perhaps I'm a terrible liar, or perhaps my superpower has a genetic base, but her glare only increases.

"Emma," she growls, and I turn for the door, and flee.

Later, after Henry is in bed and asleep, and Regina and I are pressed up against each other on the couch, yet again watching Darcy jump into the lake, she turns to me, face speculative.

"You're really not going to do anything?"

"Well," I say, and my hands, almost involuntarily, wander from her shoulders down across her chest, filling their grip with warm, pliant flesh, "I might do something…." She slaps me away, playfully.

"Emma! About my memories." I shift to face her more fully, and consider the question.

"Look – I figure you can either be Regina Mills, super hot and only slightly psychotic Mayor of Storybrooke, Maine, or you can be Regina Mills, super hot and really rather psychotic evil queen, child poisoner, world curser and destroyer of happiness. It's your choice." She rolls her eyes at me, before smiling and leaning in for a kiss.

"Either way," I mumble against her lips, "I think you're stuck with me."

xXx

FIN


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